The use of optoelectronic devices with light guides for dispersing or focusing the light from bulbs or other light emitting devices is generally known. Such guides may be provided on printed circuit boards having groupings or arrays of LEDs or other light emitting devices for providing displays such a sign or message board assembly. However, the known light guides are often susceptible to problems associated with the physical attachment of the light guide to the printed circuit board. For example, the electrical interconnections between the light source and the circuit board are typically delicate and may be easily damaged through the handling and installation of the light guide onto the circuit board. Also, gaps are often present between the light guide and the circuit board, resulting in leakage of the emitted light along the sides of the circuit board. Also, the application of a molded light guide to a printed circuit board has typically resulted in warping or physical distortion of the assembly. Further, providing an array of LEDs on a printed circuit board and attaching a light guide for use in displays often results in individual LEDs within the array having various degrees of uniformity in color and brightness, thus leading to display images having less uniformity in the optical performance of the device than desired.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a display device having one or more of the following features alone or in combination with one or more of the other features: a light guide that is molded to a printed circuit board for developing a desired light emission profile, a light guide that is adhered directly to a printed circuit board to minimize light leakage and avoid the use of external attachment devices such as adhesive tape, a light guide that does not require a degassing operation, a light guide that does not result in warping or physical distortion of the assembly, a light guide that provides protection for electrical interconnections and components to create a more robust assembly, a light guide that upon assembly can be separated into individual pixels for matching and grading uniformity and performance of the individual pixels for assembly into a display unit, or a light guide that may be used as an optical coupling device.